Towards an Explanatory Model of Suicidal Ideation: The Effects of Cognitive Emotional Regulation Strategies, Affectivity and Hopelessness

Abstract

Suicide constitutes a public health problem that has a significant economic, social and psychological impact on a global scale. Recently, the American Psychological Association has indicated that suicide prevention should be a public health priority. Suicidal ideation appears as a key variable in suicide prevention. The objective of this research was to verify the adjustment of an explanatory model for suicidal ideation, which considers the effects of cognitive emotion regulation strategies, affectivity and hopelessness. An open mode on-line sample of 2,166 Argentine participants was used and a path analysis was carried out. The results make it possible to conclude that the model presents an optimal fit (χ2 = .10, p = .75, CFI = .99, RMSEA = .01) and predicts 42% of suicidal thoughts. The model proves to be invariant based on age and gender. In conclusion, there is an importance of reducing the use of automatic strategies, such as repetitive negative thoughts of ruminative type, and increasing the use of more controlled strategies, such as reinterpretation or planning.

Commentary: How We Know What Not To Think

“…There is recent evidence where it has been possible to verify this congruent-mood effect (positive and negative affective valence) in the development of various cognitive judgments, such as selfconcept (Flores Kanter et al, 2015), self-efficacy (Medrano et al, 2016), and hopelessness-optimism judgments (Flores-Kanter et al, 2019). Even so, actual developments in affective neuroscience allow verifying this affective infusion effect at the brain structure's functional connectivity level.…”

Internal Structure of Beck Hopelessness Scale: An Analysis of Method Effects Using the CT-C(M–1) Model

“…One common practice in previous BHS research is, after recoding negatively worded items, to combine the number of endorsed items into a sum-score (Baryshnikov et al, 2020;Brown et al, 2000;Flores-Kanter et al, 2019;Granö et al, 2016;Serafini et al, 2020;Tsujii et al, 2020).…”

Análisis psicométrico del inventario de orientación suicida ISO-19, en adolescentes cordobeses escolarizados

“…Estos datos indican la relevancia que el tema tiene; sin embargo, la producción empírica sobre el suicidio en Argentina es baja (Flores-Kanter, 2017) y los modelos teóricos predictivos del suicidio evaluados en la región son escasos (Flores-Kanter, García-Batista, Moretti, & Medrano, 2019). Por este motivo, resulta imperante contar con instrumentos válidos y confiables para la medición de variables asociadas al riesgo suicida.…”